


30 Ways to Trick a Trickster

by Miri1984



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel (Movies), The Avengers, Thor (2011)
Genre: Cracksmash, Gen, RP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2012-11-20
Packaged: 2017-11-12 13:38:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 7,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr 30 day drabble challenge for Loki. This story uses my Cracksmash character, Loki, so the headcanon is a mixture of Marvel Comics, the MCU, a touch of EMH and whatever craziness happens to be going on in Cracksmash at the time. (if you want to check it out, the tumblr is cracksmash.tumblr.com and Loki's account is cracksmashloki.tumblr.com).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginning

Frigga sits the two boys in front of her, smiling slightly at the difference between them. Thor squirms and fidgets, wanting to be outside, running, always running, her beautiful golden boy, while Loki sits, smiling slightly at his brother’s antics, but mostly focused on her and the lessons he loves. His wide green eyes twinkle with some mischief, no doubt he has plans for the afternoon that will cause mayhem for his carers and delight for his brother and Sif, but for now, _for now_ she has her boys to herself and can attempt to cram some wisdom into their heads.

Her visions have been more disturbing lately. There are things her children need to know, and she is not certain that they will ever learn them. 

“Beginnings are very difficult, boys,” she says.

Thor shoves Loki and Loki slaps his hand away. They giggle. 

“Thor started that!” Loki says. 

Frigga smiles. People are too ready to believe Loki the brighter of her two sons, but she knows, _she knows,_ they are simply different.

“He did indeed, and if he does it again he will have no cake after supper tonight. But that was a simple beginning. Loki, where did the realms begin?”

“In fire and ice,” he says promptly. “When the warm air of Muspelheim hit the cold ice of Niflheim, the jötunn Ymir and the icy cow Audhumla were created. Ymir's foot bred a son and a man and a woman emerged from his armpits, making Ymir the progenitor of the Jötnar. Whilst Ymir slept, the intense heat from Muspelheim made him sweat, and he…”

Thor shoved him again.

“Very good, Loki,” Frigga smiles. “And that is true, in the way of these things. You are old enough now to know, however, that it is a story, a way of explaining things even your father does not understand.”

“Father knows everything!” Thor says.

“No he doesn’t!” Loki snaps back. “If he knew everything he would be able to do magic like mother can…”

Frigga holds up her hands. “Peace, children. Your father knows a great deal, but even our heads are not large enough to hold all the knowledge of all the worlds.”

“Someday _I_ will know everything.”

“Someday _I_ will break your nose.”

Loki giggles, which stops Frigga from giving Thor the stern look he deserves. The two know each other in a way she will never know either of them, and it aches to see it. A pleasant ache, but one that also makes tears well at the corners of her eyes when she knows Odin cannot see. 

Frigga spreads her hands, and between them an illusion of Yggdrasil forms, made of light, sparkling and beautiful. “Our world is a cycle, children. We are caught in it, like fish in a net. It repeats and repeats and repeats. The gift of prophecy that I hold is true because I can see echoes of what has come before.” 

The boys are silent now, blue eyes and green, wide and fixed on her. This is not lore that is taught to Asgardian children. Sif is not with them for this lesson, and Odin does not know that she is giving it. She looks at both children, but hopes with all her heart that Loki, who always listens, always learns more than she teaches, takes what she is saying to heart. 

“Again and again our world is born, and dies. Ragnarok — the end of all things — is also a beginning.” The illusion changes, red seeps through the roots of Yggdrasil and its boughs wither and droop. The boys watch, mouths open in fear.

“Mother it will die!”

She nods. “It will, Thor. But remember that in death comes new life.” As the illusion of the tree withers and rots, a new sapling takes its place, brighter, younger, stronger. She sets the illusion free so it floats above the boys’ heads, Yggdrasil again, more beautiful than before, stronger limbed. “Each cycle learns from its last. We are striving towards something, my loves, something that is too beautiful to submit itself to prophecy.” She fixes them with a harsh stare as the tree fades to nothing. “Just because it has happened before, does not mean it has to happen again. Remember this. You are princes. You will be kings.” Her gaze softens and she puts one finger under Thor’s chin, another under Loki’s, and lifts them both. “You can change things.”

The boys leave the lesson uncharacteristically sober. No mischief is reported from them for the rest of the day, and Frigga is content.

She has delivered her warning.

Now she must simply hope.


	2. Accusation

_Sometimes you don’t need words to feel accused._

Loki fights because he knows this is his fault. 

Well.

_Let’s try that one again. Specificity is the key to a good argument, after all. One must examine all the facts and then twist them to suit your needs._

Loki fights because he knows he is responsible for the chain of events that led them all to this place.

He would equivocate, were he actually accused of it. He has, at first count, four different explanations for why he is not responsible for what is currently happening, adjustable according to the circumstances of the accusation. He cannot be held accountable for Thor’s lack of judgement. After all, he is a brother, not a parent. Many, many years as a younger brother does not make one responsible for the actions of one’s older sibling, even should one… nudge said sibling towards decisions that are in accordance with one’s plans.

Thor is not an orphan, after all. He has Odin, and Frigga, and all the other Asgardian nobles who look upon Thor as the golden child and shower him with gifts and praise while Loki watches in the background. Children are meant to be shaped by their parents, not their siblings. 

Loki also cannot be held to task for the failings of his elders.

_One cannot be blamed for taking advantage of them, however._

Still he fights, because this particular scheme was supposed to end in Thor being humiliated and shouted at in front of the whole Asgardian court, not stuck on Jotunheim fighting with frost giants and being a complete _arse_ about things.

Loki adjusts. 

It’s his way.

It’s not the first time a scheme has spiraled out of control, and although as he throws the first dagger, casts the first illusion, he acknowledges that this, perhaps, is as far out of control of a scheme that he has ever been, he cannot also deny that he is exhilarated by it. 

When the Jotun clutches at his wrist, however, the exhilaration turns to sick dread. 

_The humans have a saying, “the best laid plans of mice and men…”_

_They never finish the saying. He suspects its something horrible and suitably mortal._

It doesn’t even feel cold. The red eyes of the frost giant catch his and glint with knowledge that sparks rage in Loki’s gut. He shoves the dagger into its chest with more force than is necessary, kicking the corpse away from him as though it burned. Whatever plans he may have been formulating, whatever excuses he had lined up in his head go with it, and he fights mindlessly until Fandral is wounded. Then it becomes a mad scramble to get away.

He tries to pick up the threads of his plot as they flee, but nothing comes; his mind is as bare as the frozen lands around them and he is afraid.

Sometimes you don’t need words to feel accused.


	3. Snowflake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In my headcanon Loki doesn’t know about Fenrir and Jormangund until Odin discovers them. Angrboda has the gift of prophecy, as does Frigga, and seduces him in different forms in order to impregnate herself with her first two children. Hel, however, was conceived in her own form.

Snow is uncommon in Asgard. The seasons turn very slowly there, time is not important when you have many hundreds of years to live, and magic provides food that the midgardians must trust to the unbalanced and capricious forces of nature. 

It is in Jotunheim that Loki truly sees it for what it is.

Angrboda has long, dark lashes. When they walk together, in the wastes, snowflakes get caught in them and they stay, glittering and white, catching the light when she turns her head to instruct him. He cannot look away.

Her face is beautiful, for all it’s wrongness. The blue swirls of her markings are like the tattoos he has seen on the faces of some of the midgardians, delicate and intricate, and he cannot stop himself from touching them. She smiles under his fingers as though his touch is familiar and it confuses him, that he feels like he should know her and doesn’t, the taste of her lips, something in her eyes and her smile that says _I have been here before._

“Your mother taught you the ways of prophecy, Loki,” she says to him, in the aftermath of their passion. “You know that this is a cycle that repeats. Perhaps it is not the first time we have lain together.”

He smirks at her. “Perhaps it will not be the last.”

She lays a palm along his face. Her touch is cold, but not as cold as he thought it would be. “It is the last, dearest,” she says. “And best.”

He frowns, but she will tell him no more, and that is the day their lessons end.


	4. Haze

Manipulating the mind of an enemy requires very little in the way of magic. It is this that the humans do not understand when they imprison him. They think him powerless. They think his magic is simply something physical, like Thor with Mjolnir and his _lightning_ and they _do not understand._

He works from knowledge and experience. These humans, they live such short lives, they have no comprehension of how they themselves _work,_ they are little, separate beings who meet in the dark with crude stone tools of communication and they never _connect_ and they never _understand._ It is easy to find the controls and _twist_ them, far easier than any spell he has mastered.

He uses his words to find the points that Barton has shown him to be weaknesses. It does not take many. They are lost creatures, lost in their world, but more importantly, lost inside themselves.

_The Soldier, the man out of time…._

_…A mindless beast who makes play he’s still a man…_

_…A warm light for all mankind to share…_

_It burns you to have come so close…_

And then there is _her._

Barton gave him more information about Natasha Romanoff than all the others put together. He knows why. He can see the marks of affection on him, the man is true and stalwart and disgustingly like Thor in a lot of ways, yet his description of her is unsatisfying. 

She is not one woman, she is many. She has no past that has not been smudged into a haze by the people who sought to control her. She has lived longer than the soldier, and she has learned from that time, and Loki does not know if he can get to her.

When he hears her tread on the floor near his cage, though, he cannot help but smile. For the first time since falling into the abyss, he feels like himself again. There is a challenge, a fight to win, and if he is uncertain of the outcome, he is not uncertain of his skill.

“There are not many who can sneak up on me,” he says.

“But you knew I’d come.”

He almost laughs. Because _he didn’t._


	5. Flame

He could, if he chose to, make them all burn.

Flame is easy to control, easy to conjure. Despite his heritage he has always had an affinity for fire, before many of his other magics came easily to him he was able to set things to burning with little more than a flicker of thought or a wave of his hand.

He has, however, been taught by many teachers, and nearly all of them have told him never to expose your strengths to an enemy. An enemy this vast, this unknown, well, he will do much much better to find out all he can about _them_ before he reveals all of himself.

There is pain, of course, but Loki knows pain. There are threats and promises and even a crushing defeat, but none of this is enough for him to let loose the fire that is within him. He was born to nothing, thrown back into nothing and he will claw his way out of nothing _and it will not defeat him._

When they send him to Midgard he has kept his knowledge of flame and ice and other magics from their grasp. The staff in his hands holds more than enough power to accomplish his purpose, and when it is done, when he is King or brought as close to nothing as these puny mortals will ever be able to manage, _then he will watch them all burn._


	6. Formal

He smoothes the scarf down and considers changing his hair, yet he wants them to recognise him. He does not need to make it difficult for them — not after what Barton has told him. From the balcony he looks out over the assembled crowd in their finery, gentle murmurs of polite conversation and strains of music floating up to his ears and making him shake his head.

So civilised.

So ignorant.

He makes his way down the steps, eyes fixed on the man he needs, the heavy weight of the sceptre in his hand. Barton needs a distraction. Loki thrives on distractions.

The solid thunk of the sceptre hitting the guard sets something aflame in his chest and he cannot _help_ but enjoy this, throwing the scientist on the statue, listening to the screams of the humans because they were incapable of comprehending that chaos can be brought into their neat little world so easily. No one steps forward to help, not even as the man struggles, not even as he plunges Barton’s device into his eyesocket… instead they run like the cattle they are, formality forgotten as they give in to their basest desires, fear, self preservation, _selfishness…_

Loki cannot help but smile.


	7. Companion

“No, Thor, you’re supposed to do it like this…” Loki cups his hands around Thor’s larger ones, trying to show him the trick of making a flame, but Thor shakes his head, and pulls his hands away laughing.

“Magic is beyond me, Loki,” he says. “Mother tries to teach us both but everyone knows you have the talent, not I.”

“If you just tried a little harder I’m sure you could…”

Thor is still laughing. “I don’t need to learn to make fire, brother,” he says, crinkles around his blue eyes. “I have you.”

Loki shakes his head and rolls his eyes, then lights the fire with a wave of his hand. “Of course you do, Thor.”


	8. Move

He lies in the depression made by his own body and every single part of him hurts.

_Was this what you planned, trickster?_

He thinks he should move. Because obviously he can’t stay here forever.

_You were never going to win this._

It is very difficult to hurt an Asgardian. Not that he is one. Frost Giants are just as durable, live just as long, but the Seiðr has made him slightly less so than Thor. Even among Asgardians, there are those who are smaller, more fragile. He curses it. Curses the green monster who left him here, curses his own arrogance, to think he could get through to the creature when its own allies could not.

Eventually he manages to move. Channel a bit of magic into his aching limbs. Claw his way out of the depression that has been formed from the impact of his own body.

Of course, _that_ is when they come for him.

 _That_ is when he knows his plan has failed.

Given the circumstances, he supposes, brevity is the soul of wit.

“If it’s all the same to you,” he says, wincing at the pain in his… _everywhere_ , “I’ll have that drink now.”

They, however, do not seem amused.

_Mortals._


	9. Silver

The frost on the floor of the weapons vault doesn’t look real. It glints silver as they step over the bodies of the guards… _bodies of the guards…_ and make their way towards the casket. He has always admired the blue that swirls in the depths of this, the greatest of their treasures, yet today, there is something unsettling about it’s colour, something that sits wrong in his heart, despite that his scheme was a _success_ and Thor _isn’t king._

He’d forgotten about the guards.

It isn’t his fault, he insists to himself as they walk towards the casket. When Odin brought them down to the vault the guards had been dismissed. He’d been told the Destroyer stood guard over the treasures kept here, he had not realised that the Destroyer was the last resort, that there were regular people, regular _asgardians_ who stood guard, in their ceremonial robes… _frosted over with silver in death._

He stands as Thor and Odin bicker, and his heart is as cold as the ice that covers the room. He tries to tell himself that they did this, the Frost Giants, that _Odin_ did this, by keeping Loki so ignorant that he had to seek his own education away from his home, and it’s easy enough to convince himself of that fact, especially when Odin dismisses the whole act, as Loki had depended on him doing _before he knew that people would die…_

They leave, Thor still raging and Loki’s mind still racing. At the top of the stairs Thor storms off and Odin fixes him with a steady glare and Loki finds he can look straight back without guilt, and without fear, because whatever _he_ has done, Odin, in the end, has _permitted_ it.


	10. Prepared

Plans are like children. You can put a lot of effort into them, but in the end, they are going to go the way they want to, because in the end, they are not _part of you._ Fenrir and Jormangund have certainly chosen interesting paths, ones that had very little to do with Loki, but that is down to Odin, like so many other things, and he hopes, like many of his plans, his children will eventually come back to _bite the old bastard in the arse._

Like his children, the unpredictability of his plans is also something that brings him joy. Loki knows he cannot control every aspect of them. So he has contingencies. And his contingencies have contingencies. But when Natasha Romanoff leaves him in his cell he suddenly realises that for _this_ wayward plan, all of its twists and turns and all the many, _many_ ways he can lose (but of course, still win) he may not have had enough.

He is a prisoner. He is relying on technology and magic not his own. He is trapped in a flying metal container that defies logic, with people who are, if not capable of killing him, at least capable of making him miserable. Remembering the looks in the eyes of Stark and Rogers and Fury, he suspects a few of them would take a lot of joy in that.

He paces, going through the plan again and again. If the hulk does not manifest, he will have to cause chaos in some other way. It’s possible he will lose Barton — he has even put the tesseract in the way of harm. Things _could_ be worse, he could still be with the Chitauri after all, but…

…he sits, and plans, and remembers that he is always prepared.

Later, when the roar of the unleashed beast reaches his ears, he smiles. Not that he wasn’t prepared for things going wrong, but it is always so _nice_ when they go right.


	11. Knowledge

He hoards it. Once he learns the secret paths between the realms he travels them constantly, learning as he does, squirreling away pieces of lore and spells and treasuring each tiny bit of knowledge he can garner. Magic is what he is most interested in, but it is not the only thing. He watches people. He observes the ridiculous rituals the humans, the dwarves, and even the dark elves surround themselves with and he files their reactions away. _This_ will make a Jotun angry. _That_ will force a dwarf to cooperate. _This and that_ will ensure the human spills its secrets…

It is not until he is much, much older and his store of jealously guarded, secret, knowledge is greater than any other he knows, that he discovers the knowledge he _should_ have had from the beginning.

He was not the only one hoarding.


	12. Denial

The humans are so… ridiculously official about everything. The hammer is being kept in a shiny white tent right where it was found (of course they couldn’t move it, Loki doubts there is a single human on the entire planet with a tenth of the worthiness required to touch the magical weapon) and it’s like a dull dot of bureaucracy in an otherwise beautiful world.

Loki walks around it, smiling. He can feel Thor’s presence, broken, tired… and it’s… comforting in its own way, his failure a warm glow of satisfaction around Loki’s belly, but part of him, a small part, is also raging that the mortals think they can confine him.

He pushes that part down and goes to visit his brother.

Afterwards, the weight of his lies heavy on him, he goes to the hammer and looks at it. He could try to lift it now. He could put his hand on the handle and grip it and pull it free and call down lightning and the humans would scream and tremble and Heimdal and Odin and Sif and Fandral would realise that _he_ is the worthy one, not the sad broken man he has just left. His fingers touch the grip and even before he pulls he knows he will not succeed.

He lets go, straightens his coat, and leaves. There is no point in denial. He is what he is, and if he is not worthy of Mjolnir, he _will_ be worthy of something else.


	13. Wind

The humans have a saying — “the winds of change”— and like most of their sayings, it presents as nonsensical in an attempt for the sayer to sound more clever than they actually are. Loki despises the midgardian languages almost as much as he despises the midgardians themselves, but in this case, he understands why they use it.

He wanders through the worlds opened to him by the nexus, and as he wanders, he feels the change but it’s not like wind. It’s like being hit, repeatedly, in the gut, like feeling the weight of mjolnir on his chest on the bifrost, like being hoisted up by the Hulk and smashed repeatedly into the unforgiving ground. Desolate wastelands, lush forests, destroyed cities, in all his travels through _his_ world tree he has not seen things such as these, has not imagined them, either, for which he feels anger.

On the rare occasions when he can find a moment’s peace, he attempts to reach the humans who can prevent these disasters.

Clint Barton disregards him.

Tony Stark laughs at him.

When he confronts Thor, however… there is something in his brother’s face that catches in Loki’s chest and makes him eager to find a path back to the reality they both share.

He looks inside himself, and feels the rearrangement of his plans and his worlds — like a breath of wind. 


	14. Order

Despite his reputation for tricks and mayhem, Loki likes things to be in order. Thor would say his order is another man’s chaos, but Loki can see the patterns and revels in complexity.

Except when it comes to the Avengers.

They are ridiculously bad at being heroes. 

When Tony Stark is kidnapped, Loki sighs, and makes adjustments, and when the Avengers prove too incompetent to rescue him, goes to help. He takes note of Doom’s ostentation and predilection for pageantry and rolls his eyes as he makes sure the Avengers steal the treasure that is Tony Stark — essential to _Loki’s_ plan, from under the mad doctor’s nose. 

He makes sure to put a minor curse on his canapes before he leaves. Dr Doom’s guests will have an amusing array of digestive disorders the following day. He makes a note to have spies watch the metal clad idiot (Loki cannot quite believe that he actually _prefers_ Stark) and hopefully he will not be so stupid next time he thinks to interfere with Loki’s plans.

Then Captain America is shot. In the street.

His secretary comes rushing in after his incredulous shout, but Loki waves her away. 

Honestly, one cannot find good people these days. Good villains… well. They are even more difficult.

He _does_ prefer to believe there is only _one_ of those. 


	15. Thanks

When the spear touches their hearts they change. It’s easier if they haven’t seen its effects already — Loki prefers to trust Barton’s judgement about who needs it and who doesn’t, and some will willingly do whatever he wishes them to, pathetically scrambling to bow to his will, because they are terrified of the peace that the tesseract brings. His own powers are strong enough to ensure basic loyalty, after all. 

He knows his own resistance to its song. The Chitauri are not so stupid as to send him to do their bidding without attempting to bow him to their will. But they are a clumsy race, and he has lived too long. They leash him with pain and threats and it is a short leash but Loki is used to working with very little and even the shortest of leashes has to have _some_ give in it.

As for those who glow with the blue of his purpose, they are pathetically grateful. Only the very stubborn, like Barton, fight against it. Loki suspects it is because he finds something seductive about the submission of his will and is ashamed. The shame pulls him in one direction while peace pulls him in another and it will not be too long before Barton breaks. 

The very strong believe that there is something abhorrent about surrender; Loki well understands that sometimes those who bend are the hardest to break.

One day Barton will understand that, and possibly be stronger for it.

Today, however, he needs a distraction, and an eyeball. 


	16. Look

He does not stare at Sigyn, the first time he sees her. He is not crude in his dealings with women, he has always been subtle, and discreet, and his interactions with those few women (or, occasionally, men) interesting enough to capture his attention tend to be the same. Subtlety and discretion are his friends. As a prince, he attracts enough attention (although not as much as Thor) and it does not do anyone any good to have his liaisons laid bare to public knowledge.

Sigyn is not the most beautiful of the women at court, nor is she the most elegant or powerful. Her family has arranged for her to marry Theoric, a man whom Loki despises more than most, and although Sigyn seems happy enough to agree to the match he has seen, sometimes, in her eyes, a look of calculation and mistrust. There is something about that look, a depth of understanding and the slightest touch of amusement, that has marked her as a kindred spirit before he has even spoken to her.

The first time they have cause to dance together, he gives her his most charming smile and attempts to outwit her in conversation. The dance progresses, and as she matches him, wit for wit, a feeling grows in his chest that will not easily be dispelled.

The next time he meets Theoric it takes a lot of self control for him not to turn the man into the toad he is.

Looks, exchanged over crowded rooms, result in gentle teasing from Thor and Fandral and soon everyone knows that the trickster prince courts the lovely advocate. Theoric glares at him from across the table at functions, but Sigyn does not dance with him again and now her eyes are filled with something akin to sadness.

Years later, on midgard, he thinks of those looks with regret. He thinks now that should Sigyn see his face — his _real_ face, she would shudder and turn away.

He is wrong, of course. She never does lose the ability to surprise him.


	17. Summer

_So Journey Into Mystery has given me all these Kid!Loki feels and nowhere to put them BUT HERE IN FIC. So have some Kid!Loki/Peter/Hotdogs._

The thing about spandex is, it doesn’t breathe. So Peter spends a lot of his time sweating. It’s not much fun on the best of days, but in the middle of summer sometimes he thinks he needs to take up another line of work. “So. Uh. I guess you don’t feel the heat much.”

Loki looks over at Peter, still chewing on his hotdog. “Frost Giant!” he says, grinning happily.

Peter still cannot compute that this boy — with the raven on his shoulder and the impish grin, is the same person who lead the Chitauri army against earth, but Thor is a friend and has asked him to be nice and Peter is _good_ with kids, he’s always been good with kids. He’s just not so sure he’s going to be good with this one.

Loki is watching him and Peter gets the unpleasant feeling that he can read his thoughts. Could the old Loki do that? He thinks he remembers Natasha saying something about how he can get into people’s heads, and there was that bodyswap thing where he got into their dreams but he just doesn’t… know, not with _this_ Loki who seems determined to divorce himself from everything that the old Loki did.

“I don’t remember it, you know,” Loki says, around a mouthful. “Ikol has those memories. I didn’t want to be saddled with something like that. I mean, how do you go through life remembering all the horrible things _you’ve_ done, I’m surprised more people don’t just…” the boy waves his arm. “Wipe them out. Like what Stark did! That was a good idea!”

On second thoughts, maybe he _can_ see the old Loki in this one.

“Look, kid, Tony didn’t do that on purpose. He had to protect the rest of us from…” Peter’s lip curls under the mask. “Protect us from Osborne.”

Loki kicks his feet and takes another bite of hotdog. “Sure, sure, but I bet he’s glad he can’t remember too. I mean, fighting Captain America and all of you guys must have been hard for him. And he was wrong too, I get the impression Stark _hates_ being wrong.”

Peter cocks an eyebrow. “You think he was wrong?”

Something flashes in Loki’s green eyes. “Don’t you?”

Peter feels a strong urge to be somewhere else. “You’re a smart kid.”

Loki spreads his arms, grinning. “Of course I am,” he says. The bird caws dismissively and Loki scowls at it.

“Sometimes right and wrong aren’t that easy to define.”

Peter could swear the bird is smirking at him.

Loki is _definitely_ smirking at him. “Well, well,” he says, pointing at Peter with his hotdog. “Looks like _you’re_ not a kid any more.”

Peter eats the rest of his hotdog in silence.


	18. Transformation

So more Journey Into Mystery inspired feels here. Gah I love that storyline so much.

 

_He lived badly._

There are choices he has made that he regrets. He can acknowledge that now, faced with his imminent — though not, he hopes, permanent — death. Asgard does not belong in this world. He thinks, perhaps, that none of them do, that the moment they stepped on the bifrost and visited the puny humans, all those years ago when the frost giants were ravaging them, was the first in their destruction. 

He snorts as he gathers up the norn stones. Everything is Odin’s fault, really. It would save time if he would simply blame him at the start. The Allfather. Allfather of lies. Allfather of idiocy. Allfather of… 

Loki would not normally admit this easily that he is tired.

But he _is_ tired. And he is old. And things this time have gone so far wrong that he is not sure he can fix them. Of course, _of course_ he has contingencies, but what he wants, right now, the only thing he craves, is rest.

He stands, holding the stones. He smiles and turns to Thor. Brother. Enemy. Fool. 

Friend.

“I am sorry, brother,” he says, and steps forward to meet an end.

_He died well._


	19. Tremble

“We need the portal to be stable,” Loki says. Selvig’s calm blue eyes fix on his and he nods. 

“That should be easy enough,” he says. “I’ll need a few things. Some more staff. Are you sure we need to keep the tesseract moving?”

“Thor can feel its power. If we stay too long in one place he will find us.” Loki does not mention that Thor can also, when he concentrates, find Loki himself, but that should not be too much of a problem soon. He focuses instead on the look on Selvig’s face as he mentions his brother. There is nothing, at first, no hint of recognition, until a moment before Loki turns to go and he sees the slightest tremble of those withered lips.

“Thor is your brother,” Selvig says, hesitant. “Does he not share your vision?”

Loki’s eyes narrow. It is a fine line, he walks, one of the finest he has ever attempted, and Selvig’s free will cannot be crushed into nothing if his plans are to succeed. “Thor is not my brother, Selvig.”

Selvig frowns. “He thinks he is.”

Loki ignores the tremble in his own hand as he turns around. “He is wrong.”


	20. Sunset

He took his first life when he was eighteen Asgardian years old. A dark elf, in a botched attempt at invading Asgard that had been doomed to failure from the start. Thor had been patrolling the borders of the realm for five years before his father eventually relented, allowing Loki to prove that, despite his size, he was formidable enough to fight alongside Fandral and Volstagg and Hogun, that his magic was just as effective against flesh and bone as Thor’s sheer strength and might.

As the light leaves the dark elf’s eyes and his cries gurgle and stop, as the flames start to consume his body and Loki’s next opponent steps back, fear written on her features at the possibility of such an end for herself, he has a moment of triumph, a moment of pure unfettered enjoyment. The taking of a life, this is the greatest power a person can have, to send someone to their greatest exile.

As the elf falls, however he feels sick. It’s a sudden thing, all encompassing. It is all he can do to summon another fireball and stride forward without losing the contents of his stomach. He tells himself that it’s the smell, how is it that an dead _person_ can smell like food? He tells himself that it’s the fatigue, the aftermath of using more magic at once than he has done before, but he knows that neither of these are true. 

Yes it is the greatest power. But he is glad (not that he would ever admit it) that he has not known that power until now.


	21. Mad

It amuses him how often he gets accused of being insane. It started young, the first time he suggested an alternative plan to the “rush in and hit things” strategy that had always worked for Thor before now, and continued well into the centuries that followed. _Oh, that’s just Loki, he always has mad plans, what insanity do you have planned for us now, brother, do you honestly think something as ridiculous as that will work… there is a kind of beauty in how crazy that sounds…_

The thing is, the thing that drives him mad (before the actual thing that drives him mad, the blue thing, the lying thing, the mad plan of theirs that he cannot conceive of ever, _ever_ working) is that his plans work. His insanity is the only sanity and yet they never fail to call him on it. 

The Avengers also think he is mad. What they don’t understand about true madness, the unhinging of a mind until nothing is left but swirling darkness, true, deep, total insanity, is that it _doesn’t_ work. Nothing that comes out of a mind like that can end in anything approaching a result, and the Avengers, for all their science, don’t see it that way, for them madness is evil and madness is _him_ and he hopes that they never understand the difference.


	22. Thousand

_Based on Cracksmash RP where Thor only finds out that he isn’t Frigga’s son after the Chitauri invasion._

 

Loki is uncertain how old he is. This isn’t uncommon, in Asgard. Years are uncertain in the ever present soft glow, age doesn’t mean as much when it doesn’t sap strength or beauty. All he knows is that there was a long stretch of years when he had a place he believed he belonged and a family he was exasperated with and he was a middle son of powerful parents and dark where they were light and…

… it was fine. Healthy resentment. Jealousy. Love. Ordinary for brothers. 

He tells himself things would have been better if the lie had been revealed earlier. When he was old enough to understand, then maybe he could have had that long stretch of years without the boiling mess of hatred at the end that ruined everything and ripped his world and several others to shreds.

A thousand years is a long time. Enough time to build resentment, or erase it.

“I suppose we shouldn’t be so surprised,” he says to Thor, once Frigga has left them, to go back to their brother — _Thor’s half brother —_ the only true child of Odin and Frigga, the heir to the throne, the man Loki has a sudden powerful urge to kill.

Thor glares at him.

Loki shrugs and purses his lips.

“You get used to it,” he says, and sketches the portal for them to go back to Midgard. Thor steps through, silent and thoughtful and Loki for once feels the elder of the two.


	23. Outside

The streets of Paris are home to him. He doesn’t need anyone, not here, except for the ever changing round of other boys and girls who make the operation run more smoothly. Tight tourist pants and women who clutch their bags over both shoulders are no obstacle to quick small fingers when applied with enough skill and Serrure smiled over them like a benevolent dictator, taking his cut for being the distraction to their thievery. 

The tall blond man is an obvious target. He so painfully foreign that Serrure is surprised he hasn’t been stripped to nothing already - rich clothes, well groomed hair, he oozes wealth and privilege and it’s easy work to get the women’s attention on him - who wouldn’t be drawn to his almost god-like proportions - and with a few quick flicks of his eyes and fingers he makes it known to the others that this, _this_ is their mark for today’s show.

He didn’t expect the wall of muscle to have senses like a cat.

He didn’t expect Jaques to get lifted off his feet in one enormous hand and the deep rumbling voice speaking heavily accented french asking for _names…_

Serrure is running before Jacques can get off his warning and Serrure is _fast._ He has run away from more _gendarmes_ than he’s had hot dinners… not that he’s had many of them lately, but he knows the back alleys and streets of Paris and he knows places to hide that a big stupid foreigner couldn’t possibly… 

Running into him is like running into a brick wall. “Merde!”

“Loki. Stop.”

He’s never heard that name before, but somehow he knows that it is his.

“I’ll give it back, I’ll give it all back, plus interest, please don’t turn me in…” He’s halfway through the first sentence when he realises he’s not speaking french and it takes another few words for his words - his stock in trade - the things that feed and clothe him - run out entirely.

“I’m not going to do that,” the voice is so familiar. Serrure shudders and lightning flickers along the wall-of-muscle’s arm and when it touches his skin his back bends like a bow.

_Do you know why it is you have no memory, why this life is the only life you can remember, why you have no parents, why your dreams hold nothing but blood and fear and evil, mocking laughter, why you feel strange whenever you see those pictures of the city in the sky why you never belonged why you… why you…_

The name is ripped from his throat, and it hurts to scream it but if he doesn’t it will burst him open and he will be nothing, not Serrure, not Loki, just… _nothing._

_“Thor!”_

Thor smiles. “I am here, brother.” His head is engulfed by one of the huge hands, his hair ruffled in a way that is so achingly familiar that it brings tears to his eyes. “Welcome back.”


	24. Winter

_Based on Cracksmash RP in which at the present time Loki is Lady Loki, EVEN IN DREAMS._

 

Loki dusts off her pants and resists the urge to sigh.

Always. With. The snow.

Loki is fed up with it. She’s fed up with the Avengers, and she’s fed up with being mistrusted, and fed up with being Thor’s brother and a Frost Giant and damn it all, _still cold_ even though she shouldn’t be able to feel a thing, especially not in someone else’s dream.

Winter. Metaphors. Spiders. Metal arms and bears and trains and thrice damned, white powdery stuff that gets in her eyes and makes her remember things she would do better not to bring into the subconscious of a human for fear it would break their mind wide open. 

Humans _really_ need to get better metaphors.


	25. Chapter 25

He sits on the floor of the sewer, clutching the sceptre in one hand, the echo of the promise of pain ringing in his ears and frowns. 

There have been a few times, in his long life, when he has contemplated what he truly _values._ Family, he thought, _once._ The bonds of brotherhood, of father and mother, of friendship.

When those are stripped away, it is necessary to find other things. 

He sits on the floor of the sewer, in the filthy underground of the midgardian city, the echo of the promise of pain ringing in his ears and the desire for action burning in his blood. 

Love. 

Power. 

_Vengeance._

One of those is worth more to him than diamonds.


End file.
